Harold
Harold is a helicopter who patrols the Island of Sodor, searching for emergencies. He is part of the Search and Rescue Team. He is operated by two pilots. Personality Harold speaks in a manner reminiscent of an RAF pilot, using terms such as "wizard" and "old chap" in conversation. Throughout the second to fourth seasons, Harold somewhat tended to be full of himself as he felt that "railways are slow", but he always got his comeuppance in the end. He temporarily regained this part of his personality in the sixth season episode, A Bad Day for Harold the Helicopter. Since then, he has acted a lot more mature and almost never teases the engines. He takes his job as part of the Sodor Search and Rescue Centre team very seriously and is always alert when there is an emergency. Technical Details Basis Harold is based on a Sikorsky S-55 helicopter (also known as Sikorsky H-19 Chickasaw), built in the UK as the Westland Whirlwind. He has added floats. Around 70 of these still survive in some form. 07762FF7-0B5C-4E9B-BE94-394F4DA04248.jpeg|Harold’s basis Livery Harold is painted white with red lining. His name is painted on his sides, near his tail, in red. Trivia *One of Harold's models is on display in Japan at the Hara Model Railway Museum (previously on display at Nitrogen Studios) and is currently missing his mouth. *Harold has gone through several changes throughout the Television Series: **Season 2: ***His spinning rotors were achieved using a transparent disk. ***In The Runaway and Thomas and the Missing Christmas Tree, he is shown with a lamp. **Season 3: ***His model's blades now spun when shown flying. ***His blades were flimsy and bent a bit. ***The lamp reappears only in Thomas, Percy and the Post Train. **Season 4: ***His blades become straight again. **Season 5: ***His blades go back to being flimsy and bent. **Thomas and the Magic Railroad: ***His blades are straight once again. **Season 8: ***The lamp becomes permanent. **Season 10: ***His eyes now move with a motor. **Season 12: ***He becomes rendered in full CGI. ***His red lining becomes a darker shade of red. **Misty Island Rescue: ***His main body becomes smaller. ***His face becomes smaller and lowered slightly. ***His livery changed back to the red colour it normally was. *In both of his appearances in the sixth season, Harold's unhappy expression was always visible behind his mouth on his happy face. *Harold's theme in the second season is a musical variation on the main score of the 1955 film, The Dam Busters. *The fifteenth season episode Stop That Bus! was the first time Harold has flown outside of The Island of Sodor. *In the television series, Harold has never had eyebrows. However, he did have them in the magazine stories Mountain Rescue and False Alarm and in illustrations by Ken Stott. *Harold was called Herbert in the French dub from Seasons 2 to 7. *One of Harold's Wooden Railway models appears in an episode of CW's show Smallville entitled Nicodemus. Category:Characters